


Going Spare

by M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Class Differences, Established Relationship, Fandom 5K 2019, M/M, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-03-02 20:38:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18818584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/pseuds/M%20J%20Holyoke
Summary: Prince Ilys was his father the king’s spare heir, so it didn’t matter what he did with his free time or to whom he gave his love.Until, that is, his elder brother was slain in battle . . .





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sombregods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sombregods/gifts).



Bern’s nipples were exquisitely sensitive. This was one of the most surprising things about him.

Ilys licked the tiny brown nubs, first one and then the other, delighting in the soft, springy chest hair that tickled his lips and nostrils as the flesh puckered and pebbled under his tongue. He bit down suddenly, and Bern gasped and growled, and his cock in Ilya’s hand jerked and wept glistening tears of precome.

“I don’t think I have the patience for this tonight, Your Highness,” Bern muttered. He’d meant that declaration to sound fierce, but mostly it just sounded desperate.

Ilys paused his attentions to Bern’s nipples and lifted his gaze up to Bern’s face. It was not beautiful—no one would call this graybeard’s craggy visage with its cruel scars “beautiful”—but it _was_ beloved. No one was more precious, more beloved, to Prince Ilys than Sir Bern.

“War has kept us apart for far too long,” Ilys said. “So I want us to take our sweet time tonight.”

“All the more reason to hurry, from where I’m sitting,” Bern grumbled.

“Lying, I think you mean. Flat on your back.”

“That too.”

They’d end the proceedings with Ilya impaled upon Bern’s thick cock . . . but not quite yet. No, Ilya planned to draw out this long-awaited reunion for as long as he could possibly stand.

 

* * *

 

Ilys’s mother had died giving birth to him, and his father had loved the queen so deeply and so well that, contra the counsel of his most wise and learned advisers, he chose not to remarry. _Yunah has given me everything I need_ , King Atsu would say when challenged. _I have a worthy firstborn male heir, and I have a spare. What more do I need?_

Ilys’s elder brother Alys was the heir. Ilys himself was the spare.

When King Atsu’s most wise and learned advisers reminded him that he had been born Prince Otsu and that, not one, not two, not three, but all _four_ of his elder brothers had perished in rapid succession before being given the opportunity to ascend the throne, the king was dismissive. _Childhood illness took their lives_ , he would say. _My sons are men already, and hale, and they are veterans of the battlefield_.

The king’s advisers were too wise and learned to roll their eyes and scoff in his hearing. _A shame the secondborn weren’t a girl child,_ they would whisper among themselves. _As it is, the prince really ought to be called_ Princess _Ilysah instead._

Ilys had no illusions about himself. He knew exactly what he was. He knew he could hardly be considered _a man_.

When they were younger, Alys had always stuck close by their father, learning the twin arts of warfare and statecraft. Ilys, meanwhile, had instead favored the company of Aunt Itsuah and Aunt Utsuah, who taught him the feminine arts of music and flower arrangement. Ilys could play the flute and the harpsicord, and he knew the castle gardens better even than the groundskeeper, which spots in which soils in which seasons would give the best of a hundred different flowers.

If he hadn’t known how to wield a sword or lead an army, well, it hadn’t mattered. The Sovereign Kingdom of Kir had been at peace.

Until, of course, it wasn’t. War came to Kir, war with Ormo to the south and war with Urf to the north. Ilys’s father the King led an army against Ormo; his brother the Crown Prince led a second army against Urf. Kir had stood firm, and victory seemed within reach . . . and then the neighboring Free State of Avyn joined with Ormo and Urf against Kir.

After that unfortunate turn of events, with their enemies closing in on all sides, the conscriptions began. Not just men in the prime of their lives, either—the army took green boys and graybeards alike—and with so many men making their sacrifice to king and country, what right had Ilys to be going spare, sitting behind the safety of thick castle walls, planting flowerbeds, and practicing his music?

None whatsoever. So he’d journeyed to the front to make his contribution to the war effort. As a Prince of Kir he would serve with the knights. Knights had manners and would know how to behave with respect around a prince. There would be no mucking about with commoner soldiers!

But knights in times of war were different than knights in times of peace. The knights that Ilys had seen as a boy while shyly peering around from behind Aunt Utsuah’s skirts had been handsome, possessed of courtly manners and plate armor polished to a mirror shine. They’d concerned themselves with winning honor among themselves, participating in tournaments and jousting tourneys. They were the sorts of proud and handsome men that had made the young Ilys squeal with admiration and delight.

Knights in times of war, on the other hand, were blooded, brutal, broad-muscled _bruisers_ , and the greatest among them was not he with the best manners, not he with the best technique for unhorsing his fellow knights with a jousting lance. The greatest among them was he who _survived_. In other words? The greatest battlefront knights were _old_ —the rest were merely dead and rotting into the ground.

Yet even among the swathes of battle-hardened veterans, Bern stood out from the crowd. He was grizzled, scarred, practically a graybeard, and yet he still had the energy to take on dozens of commoner trainees at camp, knocking each, and the next, and the next, and the next, to the ground in less time than it took knights in peacetime to salute their tourney opponents with their swords. And he didn’t break a sweat.

“What is your name, Sir?” Ilys had asked as he happened to pass Bern’s training ring one afternoon. The animal attraction he felt for Bern had been instantaneous. He told himself, however, that this was business only.

“Bern, Your Highness.” Naturally, he knew who Ilys was without having to be told.

“Fourthborn in your family?”

“Nay, fifthborn, Your Highness, but the first Bern fell in the field a moon ago.”

“I see. My sincerest condolences. Have you other brothers as well?”

“Nay. Three elder sisters only. I should expect them to outlive me to a one.” Bern’s craggy brow might look forbidding, Ilys noticed, but his clear, blue eyes glittered with gentle mischief.

“Hmm. I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Ilys mused good-naturedly. “Your talents are self-evident. After you are done here, Sir Bern, please come to see me in my tent.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Understood, Your Highness.” Bern knew well enough not to question his liege’s intentions.

Ilys had merely intended to ask Bern to assist him in his hand-to-hand combat training. He would, Ilys had decided, be an excellent sparring partner. But when Bern presented himself to Ilys at his tent later that evening, they’d been unable to resist becoming partners of a different kind:

The horizontal, between-the-blankets kind of partnership.

 

* * *

 

Ilys licked his way slowly, slowly, _slowly_ down Bern’s chest and belly. He stopped at the navel, probing and delving with his tongue before proceeding to the thickening thatch of hair around his genitals. He lifted the scrotum with his fingers, pressed the perineum, and nuzzled the sensitive flesh there, breathing in Bern’s strong musky scent. Last but definitely not least, the cock, wet at the tip and oh so very kissable—

“Forgive the intrusion, Prince Alys, but your father the king requests your attendance.”

 _This serving man must be new and utterly stupid,_ Ilys thought, blinking. _He’s mistaken me for my brother._

“Very well. Just coming.” It was one of the hazards of being a prince at home: Your time was not your own. Ilys kissed Bern apologetically before rising from the bed to dress.


	2. Chapter 2

Although the hour was late, the king and his courtiers were gathered in the throne room. The candelabras burned brightly, and their golden glow made it seem almost like daytime. The king was deep in conversation with an adviser, but he looked up as soon as Ilys entered.

“Approach the throne,” he commanded.

“Yes, father.” Ilys did as he was instructed. This in and of itself was nothing unusual. As he drew closer, however, he noticed that his father the king’s face was haggard and drawn, and his eyes were red. Like he’d been crying. Oh no . . . _no_ . . .

“Your brother has fallen in battle against the Avyn. You now bear his name and his title, Crown Prince Alys,” the king announced without preamble.

Ilys—or Alys, rather, could he really be Alys?!—went hot, then cold. He was shocked, lightheaded; he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing was real. “Are you certain of your intelligence, father? This could be mere calumny, meant to demoralize the war effort. Perhaps a hasty conclusion is not warranted. Perhaps—”

“The conclusion is warranted. An Ormo messenger left your brother’s severed head at the gates three hours ago,” the king interrupted.

Alys’s jaw dropped in horror. The Ormo were barbarians who reveled in grotesque cruelties, but this was beyond the pale. His elder brother had been one of Kir’s greatest leaders of men. And now he was gone? Just like that? This was a taunt, a brazen provocation.

“This is a provocation which must be answered,” the king said, as if reading Alys’s mind. “Our soldiers march at first light. The Avyn stranglehold on the bay and the riverlands must be broken; otherwise, we will not be able to continue provisioning our forces further south. Your elder brother’s death will be avenged.”

“Yes, yes, of course that seems wise,” Alys agreed. He was not an expert of military strategy by any means, but thanks to Bern he understood the rudiments. “I would ride out with the army, father, and help avenge—”

“You will do nothing of the sort!” the king roared, his famed temper flaring suddenly high. The courtiers’ chatter went silent. Every set of eyes in the throne room swerved toward Alys and his father. “You are my sole surviving heir, and you are less than useless on the battlefield!” The king’s voice dripped with contempt for his weak, effeminate son. “No, my son, _no_. You will remain behind these castle walls where you will be safe, and you will prepare to take up the one duty of your elder brother’s which it is within your pathetic powers to discharge: marriage to the Princess of Yindo.”

Alys blanched. A wife. Marriage. He would be expected to produce male heirs. But that meant—

“Oh, and by the way,” his father continued relentlessly, “I have already taken the liberty of having that . . . that disgusting graybeard _peasant_ removed from your bedchamber and expelled from the castle grounds. You—”

“Sir Bern isn’t a peasant!” Alys protested, defending his lover reflexively, even to so awesome a personage as his father. “He’s a Knight of the Blood—”

“He is an up-jumped peasant unworthy of a crown prince’s society, and I will no longer tolerate you persisting in defiling your sacred matrimonial bed with such disgusting dalliances—”

“But—”

“Do not test me, my son!” the king roared. “Breathe another word, _another word_ , I dare you, in defense of that graybeard peasant and I will have him executed for rape and sodomy, and I will have _you_ wield the executioner’s blade.”

“But father—”

“Thank you, Alys, that will be all. You may be dismissed,” the king said, the limp wave of his hand and the flat, uninterested tone of his voice both signs of unequivocal dismissal.

Alys took the hint and fled. He didn’t want the king and his courtiers to see him cry.

 

* * *

 

As expected, the bedchamber was empty upon Alys’s return. There were no signs of any struggle . . . well, not beyond the still rumpled bedding where, but an hour ago, but a _lifetime_ ago, Ilys and Bern had been in the middle of making love.

Alys’s soul felt as empty as the room. He knew it was wrong, he knew it was forbidden, but he hadn’t thought it would matter. They’d been in love, and they weren’t hurting anyone! They’d never intended to hurt anyone . . .

How foolish he’d been, how naïve! Alys threw himself down onto the bed and buried his face in the pillow. It was cold to the touch, but Bern’s familiar, musky scent still lingered. Alys nuzzled the pillow, kissed it, crushed it against his chest, trying to pretend that Bern was still with him. Where had Bern gone? He was a knight, survivor and veteran of countless battles, valuable military asset to the kingdom. Where would he go? Surely the castle guards had not harmed him . . . ?

Alys curled into a tight little ball and burst into tears. He continued crying inconsolably until sleep finally claimed him.

 

* * *

 

The Kingdom of Kir was losing the war. This was something Alys knew intellectually, but the hard, gritty reality of the battlefield bore little in common to the travesty Alys’s life tucked away in the castle had become.

Ironic, wasn’t it, that at the very moment that Alys was expected to become a man of the sort who would one day ascend the throne, there were no good noblemen left to serve as positive role models? The men were off fighting. His father the king was off fighting. Alys’s society consisted entirely of servants and women.

And his aunts Itsuah and Utsuah, of course, who were tasked with planning the royal wedding. Alys’s marriage would help secure a military alliance with Yindo which ought to give their enemies pause, and moreover, in time, if all went well, he and his Yindo wife would be reign over the combined Kingdoms of Kir and Yindo. The Yindo were a proud and ancient people for whom the outward appearance of perfect politeness, propriety, and respect for tradition were all of utmost importance. Alys could _not_ afford to screw this up.

“Magnificent,” Aunt Itsuah said, straightening Alys’s ermine-lined wedding robe. “Not even our brother looked more regal on his wedding day.”

“Regal indeed,” Aunt Utsuah opined with a cheerful chuckle. “ _I’d_ marry you.”

“You’re much too kind,” Alys said to his reflection in the floor-length mirror. He didn’t see anything magnificent or regal about his bearing. Instead, he saw only a frail, frightened boy who’d rather be playing music in the conservatory or planting poppy seeds in the garden, who still wept every night—not for his lost brother but rather for his lost _lover_.

“Now remember, Alys,” Aunt Itsuah said, “the cloak must be carried on the shoulders _just so_ , with the clasp aligned _here_ , at the base of the collarbone—”

“Forgive the intrusion, Prince Alys, but the castle is under attack. It is my duty to remind you that, in the event of an attack, His Majesty the king has ordered you to evacuate immediately.”

Alys looked at the frail, frightened boy in the mirror. Would he flee, as he’d been ordered? Or would he choose to stay and fight?


	3. Chapter 3

In the end, it didn’t matter. The choice was made for him.

A deafening _crack_ rattled the foundations of the castle. The ceiling rained dust upon the heads of Alys and his aunts. A second _crack_ , following only a horrified half-breath after the first, knocked the three of them clear off of their feet.

“What was that?!” Aunt Utsuah cried. She was halfway back upright again before she seemed to think better of it. She remained crouched low to the ground and cringing, arms wrapped protectively over her head, awaiting another of the terrifying blasts.

“Thundersand. That was _thundersand_ ,” Alys whispered. He’d heard the rumors, of course; everyone in Kir had. But he’d never credited their veracity.

The seafaring Free State of Avyn was said to have sent fleets far to the South where, or so the rumors would have it, the people there mined a dangerous rock from the ground which, when ground into sand, burned with concussive fury when exposed to the slightest spark of fire. Called “thundersand,” it was used by the people in the south to make impressive noise on holidays and other celebratory occasions. The Avyn, however, had seen greater potential for thundersand—when packaged, placed, and deployed correctly, it could be used as a devastating explosive weapon.

And if the Avyn were attacking the castle, that meant that a forced fast march inland, and _that_ in turn meant that the king’s counterstrike against Avyn forces controlling the bay and the riverlands had failed. Alys’s father the king had been defeated. He was probably dead.

He felt nauseous and numb, but there was no time to grieve, and he did not hesitate. He rose and threw off the ridiculous ermine-lined wedding robe. “The castle will be lost . . . if it isn’t lost already! We must evacuate!” He grabbed Aunt Utsuah’s by the arm and dragged her up from the floor. The servant offered a hand to Aunt Itsuah, which she took.

“This way,” Alys said. Together, the four of them began to run.

Alys’s ancestors had dug secret escape tunnels deep below the castle. The entrances and exits were known only to members of the royal family, and it was to these tunnels that Alys ran to now.

“C’mon! Faster!” Alys cried. He could hear the ringing of swords and the screams of the wounded in the distance. The enemy had breached the castle walls. Kir cries of defiance were met with howls in the guttural tongues of the Ormo and Urf. The castle was overrun with enemies; if they could not escape, their only choices would be to surrender or die.

And their enemies would not be merciful.

“Faster!” Alys repeated. They were nearly to the basement. An access hatch to the tunnels was hidden in the basement floor. But his aunts were aging and unused to physical exertion. They were out of breath, and they weren’t running so much as stumbling . . .

Alys reached the tunnel hatch. He opened it. Another thundersand explosion knocked them off of their feet. The basement ceiling was cracking, collapsing. The castle was about to come down on their heads.

“C’mon! We need to go!” Alys yelled desperately. His aunts were slow to rise. It looked like Aunt Itsuah had taken a piece of rubble to the forehead. She was bleeding. Not good, not good! “Get up! We need to go!” This was not the time to dawdle fearfully!

The servant was wiping the blood from Aunt Itsuah’s eyes with the edge of his sleeve. “Go, Your Highness! We’ll be right behind you!” he said.

Another deafening _crack_ shook the castle, and Alys half leapt, half fell into the tunnel hatch. Distant light was visible on the other end. That meant the exit was still clear. For how much longer? He didn’t plan to find out. He made a run for it.

It wasn’t until Alyn emerged into a sheltered glade deep in the Kirwood that he realized nobody was following him.

 

* * *

 

The Kingdom of Kir was no more. Both King Atsu and his eldest son had been slain on the battlefield. His second son was presumed to have perished beneath twenty tons of rubble when Kir Castle had been taken.

And even if—by some remote possibility—the second son had survived, who cared? He was known to be weak and effeminate, and he had no army to support his claim. The common folk of Kir didn’t care who ruled them. As long as there was relative peace and free trade along the waterways, they would be content.

As such, Kir’s conquerors were quick to reestablish order and reassure the Kir commoners that life under their new rulers would be much the same as life under the old ones . . . albeit with a lot less forced conscription into the army. The kingdom had been fully conquered, after all; peace would follow in short order.

And indeed, in the weeks and months which followed the destruction of the royal family and the castle, there was relative peace—enough peace, certainly, for one itinerant musician to travel from town to town, village to village, hamlet to hamlet unmolested, singing for room and board wherever he went.

“That was such a moving performance . . . ah, what did you say your name was again, young sir?” the innkeeper asked.

“Bern,” Alys said. He gave different names whenever he stopped and never his true one. Three more weeks of this, a month perhaps, and he reckoned he’d have enough extra to pay a woodcarver for a decent flute. After that, he planned to offer to pipe his passage on a freight galleon to the eastern continent—

“Thank you, Bern. You honor our humble establishment with the beauty of your song. Here—on the house.” The innkeeper poured him another glass of rose wine. He turned away, seemingly about to head back to the kitchen, when he changed his mind and leaned down to where Bern was seated. “I did, ah, wonder . . . You aren’t by any chance related to old Barnah and her sisters, are you?”

“ ‘Barnah’ . . . ?” Alys was guarded and noncommittal. He didn’t know where this line of questioning was going, and the last thing he wanted was anyone delving too deeply into his personal background!

The innkeeper coughed and looked mildly embarrassed. “I see I am mistaken. Forgive me. It was a foolish error. It was always my impression that their brother was closer to their age than yours anyway . . . ”

“Oh?” _Could it . . . could it_ possibly _be . . . ?_

The innkeeper chuckled. “Three sisters running the farm on their own. Quite the sight. The brother has been away fighting the old king’s wars. I’d thought that . . . ah well, never you mind.”

“I see. Do you suppose these sisters would enjoy an evening of song? Perhaps I should stop at their farm if it is not too distant?”

Like innkeepers everywhere, he spoke freely and too much. “It is not. An hour’s walk west from the crossroads. Their crops have failed two seasons in a row, though. While I’m sure they’d enjoy your singing as much as we have, they may not be able to compensate you richly for your entertainments.”

“I see. Understood. Thank you kindly, good sir.”

It was after dark, and Alys did not dare walk the roads at night. At first light, though, he departed the inn and took the western fork of the crossroads. The way was flat and easy, through pastures and land in the process of being sown for crops, and it was less than an hour, in fact, before Alys saw in the distance a broad, muscular man yoked to a plow meant to be pulled by an ox.

Alys quickened his steps, his heart caught in his throat. “Bern. Bern!” he called out.

The man pulling the plow stopped and turned to look in the direction of Alys’s call.


	4. Chapter 4

“Your Highness? _Ilys?!_ ”

Bern dropped the plow and ran across the field toward the road, and Alys ran forward to meet him. Bern swept him off his feet and into a big bear hug. Alys wrapped his arms around Bern’s shoulders and his legs around Bern’s waist and held on tight.

“I-I thought you were dead!” Bern said, kissing Alys desperately.

“And I thought I’d never live to see you again!” Alys laughed and cried at the familiar chapped roughness of Bern’s lips, the familiar scratch of his beard, and reciprocated the kiss with equal desperation. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he pushed his body into Bern’s, closer, closer, _closer_ —he’d lost Bern once, and he was determined never to lose Bern again.

Bern moaned into the kiss, desire kindling. Alys could feel the swell of Bern’s erection prodding the space between his clothed buttocks. “I’m not waiting any longer, and dammit, Ilys, I’m not going slow. If you tell me we’re going to take our sweet time,” Bern growled, “I will have you in the dirt right here, right now, like a beast in rut.”

“I don’t care, and I don’t want to wait either,” Alys replied. The image of them rutting on the roadside, where anyone could see them in their wanton, mindless passion, was hotter than Alys would admit. “I don’t care. Have me!”

Bern growled again, low and deep, a rumble Alys could actually feel vibrating Bern’s belly, and for a moment Alys thought they really would be copulating frantically right there on the dusty ground.

But no. Bern’s strong, broad hands adjusted their grip upon Alys, and next thing Alys knew, he was being carried like a blushing bride across newly turned earth, over the threshold of a thatched roof cottage, up the stairs, and laid down on a modest, well-used bed.

Bern climbed in on top of Alys, tearing open Alys’s trousers and then his own. Alys could hear their seams ripping. The hard lengths of their cocks rubbed against each other, and Alys jerked and moaned, the contact of silken skin on skin enervating. Bern just ground into him more forcefully in response. Alys lifted his legs into the air. Aaahhh, it’d been so damn long! He was leaking already; he could come practically just from that touch! But a small concern wriggled like a pinworm in the back of his mind . . .

“W-wait—! Y-your, er, your sisters—”

“Out foraging in the wood. What of them?”

. . . and then Bern was spitting into his hand and slicking himself, and he was pressing a wet, sucking kiss to the flesh of Alys’s inner thigh, and the blunt, purple tip of his cock was grazing Alys’s hole and pushing, pushing, _pushing_ , aaahhh, sudden give of muscles, soul-deep slide inside, long and thick, almost too thick to be borne, balls crushed against Alys’s backside, and then the only thing left for Alys to do was cling to Bern as he began to thrust.

Bern was as good as his word: he did not go slow. If Alys weren’t accustomed to being well used in this fashion, he would probably have torn. As it was, he could barely hold on—Bern was pounding him so hard that his teeth were rattling. Aaahhh, the angle of penetration was _perfection_ , each stroke striking Alys’s prostate gland unerringly. He was seeing stars. He buried his face into Bern’s neck. He smelled of clean sweat, of newly turned earth; he smelled of _himself_. “Oh . . . oh _God_ . . . !” Alys whimpered. His scrotum was tightening, and his hole was fluttering. The tension was winding tight at the base of his cock—he was going to come untouched—

Alys’s fingernails raked red stripes down Bern’s back, and he muffled his shriek in Bern’s neck as his semen pumped out between their bellies in hot, hard pulses, once, twice, thrice . . . six times in total.

“I . . . I can’t . . . oh, ooohhhh God—Bern! Bern!!” Alys wailed.

Bern fucked him straight through the orgasm, fucked him straight through his own, the moist squelching sounds obscene, and continued fucking him until they’d both roared and shrieked their way through two more shattering orgasms apiece.

After that, at last, at long, long last, Bern stilled. But even then, he did not pull out, and they lay joined together, Alys crushed beneath his big body and unable to move, until the oblivion of sleep claimed them.

 

* * *

 

Later, they talked for awhile. Alys told Bern all that had happened after his father had separated them. He spoke of his elder brother’s death, his impending marriage to the Princess of Yindo, his father’s death, the sack and destruction of the castle, his escape. His lonely months on the road disguised as an itinerant musician, his determination to leave his crown and the Kingdom of Kir far, far behind him . . .

“So you’ve become Alys. You’re not my Ilys anymore. It’s strange,” Bern said.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” Alys replied honestly.

Bern held and comforted him as he cried.

Bern’s story, such as it was, was shorter. After being forcibly evicted from the castle, he’d been reassigned to a new cavalry unit tasked with taking back the bay and the riverlands. He’d fought ferociously, not caring overmuch whether he lived or died, and he’d been in the battle that had killed Alys’s father the king. Somehow, he’d managed to escape that shameful rout with his own life intact. Adrift in despair, and knowing the war to be all but lost, he’d returned to his sisters and the farm.

His sisters, as it turned out, were in their own dire straits: a series of crop failures had left them close to destitute. They’d even had to butcher their last ox. Bern had been doing his best to help, but he wasn’t sure what else there was to do besides sell the farm.

Alys rubbed a spot of dirt from the side of Bern’s face with his thumb and sniffed it thoughtfully. “Hmm. The soil smells tired,” he said. “What have you been trying to grow?”

Bern shrugged. “The usual. Wheat.”

“Why not legumes?”

“Ha! If we had beans, we’d be eating them, not planting them. Can’t remember when last I had a full belly.”

“The exposure is good for legumes, and they’d help revive the soil.”

“Oh? When did you become the agricultural expert?”

Alys flushed. Gardening had not been a fit occupation for a Prince of the Blood, but he’d loved it anyway and endured his father’s scorn. But what had his father known? Maybe the knowledge would come in handy. “I have coin from my singing. It’s not much, but it’s enough to purchase seed beans. I can help, make sure the crop doesn’t fail . . . ”

Bern sat upright and looked down at Alys. His eyes narrowed. “Soooo, does that mean you’re staying?”

“Does that mean you’ll let me?”

Bern laughed, his rough voice full of joy. Alys laughed with him. Looked like he wasn’t going to be going spare any longer!

Then they took advantage of the time they had left before Bern’s sisters returned from the foraging to make love again. To Alys’s undisguised delight, it went a bit more slowly the second time around.


End file.
